*if* they actually modified a Canon body so it would shoot Leica-R lenses as intended it *might* make some sense... of course, since the only real improvement over R-lenses, Canon body and an adaptor would be auto-stopdown... and of course a nice red dot!
Pixel Perfect wrote:
You need to hang out on the Alt gear forum and just see how bad Canon glass is. I'm embarrassed to admit I use L glass over there!
No - there are some truly excellent Canon lenses out there. The superteles, the 70-200 zooms, the 85L and the 135L are among the best optics ever created in their respective focal lengths. However, alternate wide-angles and 50mm lenses put Canon to shame. Plus you can get lenses that are VERY close to Canon's best lenses for a fraction of the price, if you're willing to forgo autofocus.
I have yet to see a telephoto zoom lens that can equal the optics of my 70-200 f/4 IS. (The fact that I found it equal to my 135L at comparable apertures should tell you something.)
That said, for the $230 and $275 they cost me respectively, there's nothing in the Canon lineup that can equal the optics in my Zeiss Sonnar 85 f/2.8 and my Rokkor 58mm f/1.2.
Why would Leica go that route? Just sorta thinking outloud here. I think it would be easier to make a MF lens with a canon mount, that you would have auto stopdown. You set the apeture in the camera as with any other AF lens. Hmmm, you would think that Ziess would have done this with the ZF/ZS line of lenses, it could also be chipped so you could see basic shooting info on the lense.
Pixel Perfect wrote:
You need to hang out on the Alt gear forum and just see how bad Canon glass is. I'm embarrassed to admit I use L glass over there!
And how many of them are photographers vs IT guys?
joeisayo wrote:
And how many of them are photographers vs IT guys?
What are you really trying to say? That if you want to save money (say, by getting a MF 135mm that is just as sharp as the canon 135mm for 1/10th of the price) you have to be an IT guy? If you want special bokeh or special color rendition, you have to be an IT guy...?
Huh? Am I missing something?
You can already mount every Leica R lens and every Zeiss lens (Contax/Yashica mount) on your Canon, with a simple adapter and AV mode. Those who are fussy about Canon's perceived weakness in wide angles are already using alternative lenses, or even go the extend of converting Contax N lenses for Canon, with autofocus and auto apperture. True the Noctilux is not R mount but realistically speaking who would pay 8-10k for a manual focus normal prime? Unless Leica starts making autofocus lenses especially for Canon, what is the benefit? The luxury of exif? Or a rebranded 1Ds for double the price?
Unless Leica is planning to use Canon's know-how to develop a full frame digital RF (which is interesting ) then what is the big news?
Edited by Spyro P. on Aug 20, 2008 at 01:45 AM GMT
ulrikft wrote:
What are you really trying to say? That if you want to save money (say, by getting a MF 135mm that is just as sharp as the canon 135mm for 1/10th of the price) you have to be an IT guy? If you want special bokeh or special color rendition, you have to be an IT guy...?
Based on what I hear here about photographer's incomes, I assumed it was the IT guy getting the L glass.
Spyro P. wrote:
Huh? Am I missing something?
You can already mount every Leica R lens and every Zeiss lens (Contax/Yashica mount) on your Canon, with a simple adapter and AV mode. Those who are fussy about Canon's perceived weakness in wide angles are already using alternative lenses, or even go the extend of converting Contax N lenses for Canon, with autofocus and auto apperture. True the Noctilux is not R mount but realistically speaking who would pay 8-10k for a normal prime? Unless Leica starts making autofocus lenses especially for Canon, what is the benefit? The luxury of exif? Or a rebranded 1Ds for double the price?...Show more →
Actually that's not entirely true especially with the 5D - many R lenses need modification to fit. Anyway a native EF mount Leica would be a nicer proposition with auto aperture so no stop down metering needed (yes stop down metering is simple but I'd still rather have electronic aperture control).
True the adapters can sometimes leave you wanting compared to a native mount lens. So yes that would be nice, how nice it depends on the price really. At the moment I would much prefer for example a old Zeiss AE or MM lens for half or the price of a modern ZF one as the optics are the same. I suspect it would be the same deal with Leica Canon mount lenses...
Are we sure we are talking about Leica EOS mount lenses on a red dot EOS Canon? Or are we talking about Leica R mount lenses on a red dot Canon R mount camera with auto aperture for R lenses. I would love to have the latter. I think it is a pipe dream... but to have the best R Leica glass on a 1ds III 21MP Canon sensor with full auto aperture and a native R mount would be my dream solution. I would buy one in a minute.
The part that would make sense about this (and I don't believe any of it) is that Leica is without a doubt the best glass company in the business. But they totally lack digital knowhow. Indeed for the their latest R9/DMR R mount solution they had to have Hasselblad make the DMR digital back for their R9 film camera. That ended poorly. For their P&S they had to use Panasonic as the body maker. Then they tried to hirer a high tech guy to be CEO and that ended very, very, very badly, almost put them under. In contrast look at how Mamiya (a medium format glass and film body company) has partnered with Phase One (a premier digital back company) to make excellent digital solutions. Or as another example how Zeiss ZF optics on Nikon F bodies have recently become a success. Or how Zeiss has succeeded in licensing out optics to Hasselblad, Sinar, Cosina/Contax and Sony has worked out well. It can be done. I think Leica under the new (and better) management would be wise to strike a deal with Canon before Photokina and let Canon handle production of a modified R mount 1 series body and let Leica focus on the R glass and make a big splash about it by Photokina, even if the product (R10) wasn't out until 2010. The mount modification is not complex. People are already modifying Sigma bodies to R mount. You just need to modify the aperture lever.
However... call me skeptical. I can't see why Canon would do it...what would be Canon's motivation? But I would buy into such a solution...no doubt in my mind.
>>If you want special bokeh or special color rendition, you have to be an IT guy...?
hahaha! Yes, IT guys get the luxury of sweating the details... "pros" only have to worry about scrambling to get the next gig... it amazes me when I see commercial shallow DOF work and how there are pentagons, brightlines etc... which no self respecting FM member would accept... but here you see the work in magazines, promos and on the covers of best seller books...
>>However... call me skeptical. I can't see why Canon would do it...what would be Canon's motivation?
sell more bodies? native R-mount lenses would be no real competition for anything current and Canon, so they risk nothing. That said, for all the people that say they would buy it, I doubt many actually would... and I'm sure the guys at Canon are smart enough to figure that out fast. Leica would sell some more R lenses though... and they seem fine with small volume sales... how many people would really pay $5000 for a modified 5D that had a native R-mount?
thankfully, I am still happy shooting film in my dirt cheap R4
